Creationism - National Center for Science Education

Some extrabiblical beliefs are necessary in order to rescue biblical literalism and bring it into line with
modern scientific knowledge. Because these beliefs are necessary corollaries of biblical literalism, they
have achieved a doctrinal status among the scientific creationists and are given nearly equal credence with
scripture itself. In other cases, the extra-biblical emendations are wholly unnecessary flights of fancy, upon
which many creationists place as much emphasis as upon scripture itself.
The Gap Theory of creationism, with its scenario of Satan’s Fall and pre-Adamic reign
on earth, is perhaps the most obvious example of a belief adopted solely to reconcile the
Bible with science—in this case, a literal six day creation and the recent creation of man
reconciled with the geologic ages—but for which there is no independent scriptural
evidence (despite the claims of its supporters, who find vague references to it in various
apocalyptic verses).
Gap Theory advocates know that young-earth creationism is massively
contradicted by science, so they must find a way to preserve inerrancy without violating
this scientific truth.
DICHOTOMIES
Richard Hofstadter (1962) emphasized that fundamentalists viewed the world in
sharply dichotomized terms: of good versus evil. This propensity to see everything in
terms of stark dichotomies is partly a consequence of the fundamentalists’ tradition of
biblical interpretation. Viewing the Bible as a set of propositional statements and hard
facts (historical and scientific as well as moral), which are perspicuous and accessible to
a plain, direct Common Sense approach results in a vulnerable situation. If any of these
“facts” are shown to be in error, then biblical inerrancy—the central doctrine of
fundamentalism—is called into question. Thus the “hyper-facticity” of fundamentalist
biblical interpretation, and the assumption that the meaning of facts can be known
directly and absolutely, encourages them to insist that there can be no compromising
whatsoever regarding the meaning of plain, factual biblical statements; no room for reinterpretation.
And any theory or doctrine which contradicts any part of the Bible is an
attack upon the whole, and must be considered as of Satanic origin, and thus wholly evil.
An obvious (to the fundamentalist) corollary to the principle that disproof of any fact in
the Bible is a refutation of the whole is the belief that disproof of any fact used to support
evolutionism, which clearly contradicts Genesis, must render evolution totally false. This
seems plausible because there is a real dichotomy between the supernatural and religiousbased
explanation of creationism and the wholly naturalistic method of science.
The attitude that the Bible must be accurate and inerrant in all its facts or else it
must be rejected entirely is expressed with surprising candor and frequency by
creationists. Many “scientific” creationist books, which do not otherwise discuss religion
overtly, declare this to be so quite openly. Some modern theories, notably evolution,
clearly contradict the plain meaning of the Bible. Logically, this results in a refutation of
inerrancy. This conclusion is of course unacceptable; if it were true, then the whole Bible
is false: a lie, a sham, a delusion, a horrible deception.
Alfred Fairhurst, a natural science professor at Kentucky University, wrote in
Organic Evolution Considered: